


Frenetic Slumber

by chattering_tchotchke



Series: Oxymorons [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Healing, Sora’s Heart Hotel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 20:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17372600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chattering_tchotchke/pseuds/chattering_tchotchke
Summary: frenetic (adjective) — filled with excitement, activity, or confusion; wild or franticslumber (noun) — 1a: sleep; b: a light sleep; 2: lethargy, torpor





	Frenetic Slumber

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been pounding this out in my spare time because I really need to finish this series before KH3 drops. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think!

The white walls of Castle Oblivion were not inclined to give up their secrets easily. So many had tried to find one in particular, but that one was hidden so thoroughly only one person could ever know where to find it. She was the one who had hidden it, after all.

Figures dressed in black had once wandered the white halls. Even before that, others had lived there, when the castle went by a different name.

But for all their wanderings through it, the castle never gave a hint as to what its deepest secret was, nor where it was.  The thick walls swallowed up any sound, and the twisting hallways confused any attempt to map out the castle.

And deep inside, Ventus slept on.

 

* * *

 

He slept inside his guardian’s heart as well, though not always. Sometimes he would wake up with the ache in his chest becoming a little more bearable. Then, he could walk around the island—or at least, where Sora’s heart sheltered him—for a short while before he slept again. Each time he awoke, he felt better and better. But he still wasn’t so strong, his heart wasn’t fully healed again. He would have to stay a while longer.

Sora’s heart reflected his home, a little island filled with trees thick with fruit, beaches with waves gently lapping at the sands, and love. Of course it was filled with love—for his home, for his family, for his friends—his love was what had saved Ventus the first time.

And it was only natural that a heart filled with such love would welcome others as well.

Those others, though, were only ever glimpses, only fractions of a picture at a time that Ventus could catch.

A girl, the first who appeared, with short black hair and a half-whispered name that felt like the gentle rush of tides. A boy, almost familiar during the seconds he appeared, his name also familiar but having a fearful weight to it.

They almost never spoke when they came, nor did they come for long. Ventus wished they would.

Then there was the man in red, who almost never came. He’d never speak, too, only look at him with shame in his eyes. Ventus had never seen him before.

He wished he could see Terra, or Aqua, or better yet, both. If he hadn’t had to spend so much of his time here sleeping, he might’ve gone mad from the fear and monotony of it all. He missed them. Wondering where they were and what had happened to them quickly became a mass of worries when he was awake to think.

What had happened to them all?

 

* * *

 

It was dark now, darker than it had ever been in Sora’s heart. The skies, always so sunny and bright, had filled with rumbling storm clouds and huge gusts of wind. The waves pounded at the beach, as if they were trying to drown the whole island.

_Come with me._

Ventus’s heart ached. Something was happening to Sora that he couldn’t see, couldn’t help him with. Something had been waiting at the edge of his senses, something horrible and familiar and terrifyingly smug about it all—

It was that voice, wasn’t it?  The one that had droned in a bore about something to Sora earlier.  It had come back again, now, and it was waiting for— he didn’t quite know what it was waiting for.  It couldn’t be anything good.

And the other boy had appeared again. He turned to Ventus, smiling softly. “It has to be him, really. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Now that he could see him clearly, the boy looked just like him.  His voice, even, was so like Ventus’s own, but it had a weariness to it. He held grief in his tone which, somehow, Ventus knew was not something the boy had always carried with him. But before he could respond, the boy disappeared into spots of light.

The girl walked past him, taking shallow, shuddering breaths, her entire form flickering between being there and not being there. “It wasn’t me he saw, he doesn’t even know me anyway—”

“Wait!” Ventus cried, “Come back! Who are you?”

“—stupid puppet, don’t get your hopes up—”

“I need to talk to you!”

It was too late; she had disappeared again.

Lightning shot down into the roaring sea as the island shook. The presence he had felt before now comfortably settled itself near Sora’s heart, lingering near the outside, hovering as if to pounce.

The monotonous voice now echoed through the air even more, vibrating through his very being. It was saying something, but it was so hard to hear just _what_ it was saying. Ventus strained his ears, concentrating as hard as he could to catch its words that slipped through his ears like water but stuck to his mind like honey.

_I am Xehanort from the most distant past._

No. It wasn’t—couldn’t be—he’d _known_ that half-amused drone; he’d know it anywhere, so how hadn’t he _seen—_ He was supposed to be _safe_ here, what had that man done?

He was in such a panic that he missed the next few self-assured words that poured out so hypnotically. But he had to pull himself together. He had to calm down, for Sora’s sake.

Now, in some way, the words were peaceful things for him. He needed them to keep coming, he needed to rest. Just to lie down on the beach and fall asleep and let the water lap at his feet and fall asleep and have the waves carry him away and fall asleep and sink into the depths of Sora’s heart and **fall asleep and stay out of my way, boy—**

“No!” He suddenly howled up into the stormy sky. What was— what had he been doing? “I won’t! You can’t make me!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

##  **STEP ASIDE**

 

 

 

 

 

 

This newer voice echoed through his skull and only became louder the more it did so. Ventus knew that voice, he did, but everything hurt too much for him to think anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

##  **GO**

##    
                                   

##  **TO ******

 

****

****

##  **SLEEP**

**_  
_**

##  **YOU**

****

****

****

**_  
_**

##  **INSOLENT—**

 

 

 

 

 

****

 

 

Ventus sank to his knees, hands scrabbling at his head to try to get it out of his head, the voice that roared inside his head while pain-filled tears dripped from his aching eyes.

The voice had cut off much too suddenly, as if it were being choked back. His head still hurt, but at least he could listen to the other one now.

_Your heart shall sleep forever in the folds of darkness…_

“No! Not if I can help it,” Ventus hissed at the droning voice. “I won’t let you take him!”

With all his will, he sent out his armor, only a manifestation of it and its protection, but still a shield. It formed around Sora, metal plates linking together to keep his guardian’s heart from suffocating.

There. Sora was safe, finally, as safe as he could be now. It was all he could do. They would be safe, too; Ventus and the girl and the other boy and that man would not be drowned in darkness. The storm was finally gone.

_...and your body will be another vessel for me._

“It won’t,” he laughed in wondered relief. “It won’t sleep, not really it won’t. You won’t have all of him. I…did it. I did…”

Ventus promptly fell asleep on the beach.

 

* * *

 

The next time Ventus awoke, he was in his bed, the sunset shining through the open window beside it. The comforter had been pulled over him; he had somehow been tucked into it while he was sleeping. Taken aback, he looked around the room to see if whoever had done it was still there.

_The woman had been looking for her son for a long while. It wasn’t like him to be out this long; he was always home at this time. Normally she wouldn’t have worried so much—he could’ve gone to Kairi’s, or Riku’s—but something told her that this was different.  Something, so full of fear and panic, had ached in her chest that night._

_She finally found him on the beach._

_“Sora? Why are you out here?” Her voice had a halfheartedly exasperated tone to it. It didn’t really matter, though—the nights were warm enough to banish the worry of him getting a chill from her mind._

_It was too dark to see if he was awake or asleep, but the lack of an answer told her he was sleeping._

_And he was so big, now, hardly the little four-year-old he once was, but the woman scooped up her son as if he hadn’t gotten bigger. As if he hadn’t gotten older, as if he hadn’t_ changed _so much and come home with such a sadness in his eyes at times. She quietly carried him into the house, then to his bedroom._

_After she’d tucked him in, she sat down on the side of his bed. She stroked his hair gently as he shifted and murmured something in a worried tone._

_“You’re alright now, Sora.” She stood up and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You’ll be alright. I’ll never be far.”_

_Before she left the room, she opened the window so he could feel the breeze. He’d always insisted, when she used to tuck him in, that the window stay open. Whenever she’d laugh and ask him why, he’d give a different reason every time. So he could see the moon better. So he could hear the birds in the morning. So he could feel the breeze. So he could smell the ocean._

_She wondered what had happened to her carefree son._

Finding nothing, Ventus made to get out of bed, before noticing a small indent in the sheets by his side, like someone had been sitting there.

He could almost still feel the person from his dream, gently holding him and whispering soft words to him. It was something familiar, but something he’d missed for such a long time.

The ache in his chest only an occasional twitch now, he made his way to the beach again.

And there, Ventus met Riku.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: This started as an idea that was more about the activities going on around Ven in Castle Oblivion than about him. But I really wanted to focus on him more, so it turned out much better than it had been.  
> There’s one more fic left in the series, which will be coming as soon as I can make it.


End file.
